Can These 2 Nutrients Lower Your Risk for Parkinson’s?

By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter

Folks who eat significant amounts of nutritional vitamin C and E may possibly decrease their hazard for Parkinson’s disease by pretty much a third, a new analyze suggests.

Foods significant in vitamin C include oranges, strawberries, broccoli and Brussels sprouts. Foods significant in vitamin E include spinach, collard greens, pumpkin and nuts these types of as almonds and peanuts.

How may possibly the two vitamins and minerals ward off Parkinson’s? According to the European scientists included in the new analyze, nutritional vitamins C and E are also antioxidants that could ward off the mobile harm Parkinson’s brings about. Specially, antioxidants may possibly aid counteract “unstable” molecules and the oxidative strain that can guide to a decline of a mind chemical identified as dopamine, which is a hallmark of the affliction.

“The protecting influence of nutritional vitamins on Parkinson’s disease hazard may possibly be minimal to particular nutritional vitamins, these types of as nutritional vitamins E and C. Thus, consuming foods that are rich in nutritional vitamins E and C may possibly aid to prevent the enhancement of Parkinson’s disease,” claimed researcher Essi Hantikainen, from the College of Milano-Bicocca in Italy.

“Also, significant concentrations of vitamin C are located in the central anxious system, in which it has neuroprotective houses,” she explained.

Hantikainen famous that this analyze can not show that nutritional vitamins E and C prevent Parkinson’s, only that significant amounts of these nutritional vitamins are linked with a decrease hazard of establishing the disease.

“Even further exploration is essential to validate these findings,” she claimed. “And it is not yet distinct what the most valuable quantities of nutritional vitamins E and C are to minimize the hazard of Parkinson’s disease.”

Parkinson’s disease is a motion condition. It steadily lowers dopamine, a chemical in the mind, affecting speech, walking and stability. The brings about aren’t identified, and there are no efficient remedies, nor is there a get rid of.

For the analyze, published online Jan. six in the journal Neurology, Hantikainen and her colleagues followed almost forty four,000 grown ups in Sweden for an common of 18 yrs. None had Parkinson’s at the get started.

Contributors completed a questionnaire at the outset about their healthcare background, eating plan and training, which includes height, excess weight and physical action.

They were then divided into a few teams: those with the highest consumption of nutritional vitamins E and C, those with moderate consumption and those with the most affordable consumption.

Throughout the analyze, 465 men and women designed Parkinson’s disease.

Soon after getting into account variables like age, intercourse, overall body mass index and physical action, men and women who acquired the most nutritional vitamins E and C had a 32% decrease hazard of Parkinson’s disease than those who acquired the the very least.

What about having the two nutritional vitamins from health supplements?

“We were not ready to examine the influence of health supplements on the hazard of Parkinson’s disease,” Hantikainen claimed, but there may possibly be great overall health reasons to test sourcing the vitamins and minerals from food items, not capsules. “Substantial consumption of some nutritional vitamins from health supplements, these types of as vitamin E, has been connected to a increased hazard of certain illnesses, these types of as cardiovascular disease,” she claimed.

Dr. Alessandro Di Rocco, director of Northwell Health’s Movement Problems Application in Great Neck, N.Y., reviewed the analyze and claimed antioxidants may possibly be 1 of the environmental variables that secure from Parkinson’s.

“We’re considering of Parkinson’s like quite a few other neurodegenerative illnesses, as an interplay between genetic variables, some of which we know, most of which we really don’t, and environmental triggers,” he claimed.

Di Rocco claimed quite a few of his individuals choose supplemental antioxidants: “A lot of my individuals do choose vitamin E and vitamin C, and they requested me must I choose them, and all I can say is that I’ve no reason to say no, there is certainly no hurt in accomplishing it, and most likely there is a benefit.”

Folks at hazard for Parkinson’s, these types of as those with a solid family members background of the disease, may possibly also benefit from antioxidants, he claimed.

James Beck, chief scientific officer of the Parkinson’s Foundation, claimed the most effective way to secure by yourself from Parkinson’s is to have a healthful lifestyle. That contains consuming a Mediterranean-design and style eating plan rich in fruits, veggies and whole grains, and having a great deal of training.

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Whilst genetics engage in a role in Parkinson’s, only ten% of conditions are because of to identified gene mutations, Beck claimed.

He also famous that experiments of antioxidants and the hazard for Parkinson’s have had mixed benefits.

“We really don’t thoroughly realize what is heading on about why men and women produce Parkinson’s,” Beck claimed. “This analyze would not provide that form of clarity. We can not say, ‘Oh, Alright, this is why men and women are establishing Parkinson’s disease or not establishing Parkinson’s disease.'”

Much more details

For much more on Parkinson’s disease, see the Parkinson’s Foundation.

Resources: Essi Hantikainen, Ph.D., College of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy Alessandro Di Rocco, MD, director, Northwell Health’s Movement Problems Application, Great Neck, N.Y. James Beck, Ph.D., chief scientific officer, Parkinson’s Foundation Neurology, online, Jan. six, 2021

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